Student bank account - 24hrs wait?

Shyposter

I've been in to Nationwide with my son today to open a new student bank account - he had his offer letter (following his results this morning his 'conditional offer' was changed to unconditional as he met the entry requirements) and his 4 digit UCAS code in order to open the account.

However, they adviser in the branch said that we have to wait 24 hours from acceptance of the offer before the code will work on their system. (I was dubious at this as you don't have to 'accept' an offer when you've made a firm choice and you achieve the required grades). They even started the application but the system chucked it out saying they could not verify the information with UCAS.

Is this 24 hour rule normal? And do we have to wait exactly 24 hours? Does anybody know when the clock started ticking? I only ask as the UCAS website said that the university made their offer unconditional on 13th August (presumably when they received the A level results!)?

agrinnall

Why are you so desperate to open an account immediately? Is a 24 hour wait really a big issue? If it is you'll be disappointed when trying to open non-student bank accounts as many of them take considerably longer than 24 hours to open (although some are immediate).

TheGardener

Spare a thought for the kids who have 18th birthdays from now until the 31st August - they can't open a student account at all until after their 18th which means in some cases - not being able to use the code for another week or so - which is all a bit last minute when there are so many other things going on and Student Finance wanted the account details months ago